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Author: Brian

by Brian • February 8, 2016 • Comments Off on What’s in a Monsanto Contract?

I’m a family farmer, and I have signed a Monsanto contract. I’m the 4th generation to work this land. Somewhere along the line the idea corporations control farms or farmers are slaves to “Big Ag” came about. People claim that we are beholden to corporations like Monsanto and have to sign unfair contracts to be privileged enough to use […]

by Brian • December 31, 2015 • Comments Off on My Top Ten Blog Posts of 2015

Another year of blogging and farming gone by already! It was an interesting year that started out too wet, but brought us perfect harvest weather even if the yields weren’t perfect. I’ve been sharing my top ten most viewed posts of 2015 on facebook and twitter so I thought I’d collect them all here in […]

by Brian • November 18, 2015 • Comments Off on How Do Farmers Harvest Corn?

On our farm we grow corn for grain. Unlike sweet corn our corn remains in the field until fall when the plant reaches maturity and the grain dries out. So what kind of equipment do we have to get it out of the field and into our grain bins or off to market? The Combine […]

by Brian • September 24, 2015 • Comments Off on #Harvest15 is Live on Periscope!

Hey! Did you know I’m on Periscope? I sure am, and I have unlimited data on my phone! For those that may not know Periscope is a live streaming video service. So this fall I will be broadcasting our harvest activities straight from the field. You can catch my videos and send me questions and […]

by Brian • August 19, 2015 • Comments Off on Back to School for the First Time

My wife and I graduated from Purdue in 2002 and 2003. Now in the fall of 2015 we are going back to school for the first time in a long time via our son heading into kindergarten. The idea of school isn’t new to him as he had two full years of preschool, but now […]

by Brian • July 13, 2015 • Comments Off on Can Bad Weather be Good for Farmers?

The Bad 2015 is a tough weather year. Excessive rain is currently taking a fairly big toll on our crops. Corn especially. The last two years were very kind to us and brought big harvests. This year has been wet. Really wet. During planting I don’t think we worked the fields more than three straight […]

We just installed a barn quilt on the barn at our farm. My sister describes the history of the quilt as follows. “In the early1900s, my maternal great-great-grandmother Inez Newton made a quilt using her own variation on the Whig Rose Pattern. Around that same time, a barn was being erected on the ground that […]

by Brian • May 31, 2015 • Comments Off on Planting is over. Now what do farmers do?

Our 2015 planting season began on April 24. It ended on May 23. The season seemed longer than one month because I don’t believe we ever got a full week of planting in due to rains and waiting on particular fields to dry out. Some people think grain farmers like us work hard for just […]

A small farm is an important part of agriculture. But I’m not talking about a few acres so much as a few carpets. Our son, somewhat by default, is really into farming. He’s five years old and he will tell his great grandpa, granpda, and dad how to operate equipment in the field. And he will be […]

It has been said a financial portfolio should be diversified to protect the investment and cast a greater net for profit. We do something like that on our farm even though on the surface we may not seem very diverse. Yes we raise corn, soybeans, popcorn, and wheat. But break it down further to find […]